Work

Singapore’s Extreme Neoliberalism and the COVID Outbreak: Culturally Centering Voices of Low-Wage Migrant Workers

Year: 2021

Type: article

Abstract: I draw on the key tenets of the culture-centered approach to co-construct the everyday negotiations of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) among low-wage male Bangladeshi migrant workers in Singapore. The culture-centered approach foregrounds voices infrastructures at the margins as the basis for theorizing health. Based on 87 hours of participant observations of digital spaces and 47 in-depth interviews, I attend to the exploitative conditions of migrant work that constitute the COVID-19 outbreak in the dormitories housing low-wage migrant workers. These exploitative conditions are intertwined with authoritarian techniques of repression deployed by the state that criminalize worker collectivization and erase worker voices. The principle of academic-worker-activist solidarity offers a register for alternative imaginaries of health that intervene directly in Singapore's extreme neoliberalism.

Source: American Behavioral Scientist

DOI: 10.1177/00027642211000409

Author: Mohan Jyoti Dutta

Institution: Massey University

Language: English

Topic: Anthropological Studies and Insights

Subfield: Anthropology

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Reduced inequalities, Decent work and economic growth, Good health and well-being, Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,000